A conventional tractor mounted rotary lawn mower has a generally horizontal deck supporting one or more rotary blades. The deck has a side discharge chute for discharging the grass clippings outwardly from the mower deck. A blower driven by the PTO of the tractor is used to pick up the grass clippings from the side discharge chute and move them into a collection bag. In some installations, a separate internal combustion engine is used to power the blower to draw grass clippings from the side discharge chute and move the clippings along with air into a collection bag. The tractor and blower engines generate considerable noise and require individual servicing and repair. In operation, when the tractor engine is stopped, the blower continues to operate until it is turned off.
Rotary lawn mowers have been equipped with blowers driven by the mower engines for moving grass clippings from adjacent the sides of the decks of the lawn mowers into a collection container. Wagenhals in U.S. Pat. No. 3,925,968 discloses a rotary lawn mower supported by a tractor equipped with a blower for moving grass clippings from the rotary lawn mower into a bag. A combined belt and pulley and gear box drive is used to transmit power from a blade shaft to rotate the fan of the blower. Gear box drives are costly and consume substantial power to rotate the fan.